Life in the Cheese Drawer

life scenarios:

i was a colicky baby. i’ve heard that story from my parents more than once.

young kate is 2-6 years old. here are some items of note:

1. i am almost debilitatingly shy around some people. i remember being at daycare and refusing to eat lunch when the caretaker’s husband was there.
2. at some point, i have dragged my mattress out into the hallway and slept there for days/weeks/i couldn’t tell you how long. the light in the hallway is on.
3. i feel different from all the other kids in gradeshool. i don’t know that i ever had any really good friends. some so-so friends, but more often the other kids made fun of me in some fashion or other. it wasn’t until high school that i had real friends.

flashforward. i’ve done my best to overcome my shyness. my confidence is much better as an adult, but still not 100% comfortable going into unknown situations. anxiety gets steadily, but slowly, worse, but not to the point of panic attacks or that i think it’s keeping me from living my life the way i want. it gets exacerbated when work is stressful. i know others who have much worse anxiety.

flashforward again: last night i was in the middle of some yoga homework and looking at the different chakras, hoping maybe i could find out which chakra (energy flow) is blocked that’s causing my anxiety. (since i started reading “the body keeps score”, i’m paying more attention to this woowoo stuff.) (i know some of you think this is woowoo and are wondering where i’m going with this. let’s say that i’m always kind of critical of woowoo stuff, but i am NEVER surprised when it happens.)

anyway, i remember an experience i had with reiki 5-10 years ago, and how something weird happened over my throat. look up the throat chakra, sure enough. social anxiety. then i remember something my mom said after i told her about the reiki experience and how my reaction made sense to her – i was a forceps birth.

i do a little more googling. then a link pops up: pscyhological effects of traumatic births. i click through, and all the scenarios i had as a young child? the anxiety i have now? there they are.

BOOOM. like, literally mind blown. (well figuratively, but my mind was shocked.) i had a traumatic birth. i am harboring PTSD from an event that I CAN’T EVEN REMEMBER. an event without which i would not be here. i swear, i went through all the stages of grief in like 10 minutes last night. i was shocked, sad, angry, annoyed, etc. BUT one thing i was not was anxious.

i was chatting with the school counselor about it today. i told her that i had been stewing on this for years. what are my anxiety and weird quirks about? no violence at home. no psychological games or weirdness. what happened in my childhood? this was such a revelation. she said that sometimes just the knowledge is enough to help move through some of the issues. which it has already. it’s unbelievable. but she gave me the name of a person who does touch healing (more woowoo for y’all), and i’ve already sent an email to her about an appointment. i sure would like to open up that throat chakra completely. I’ll post an update if/when it happens.

Here’s the link to that website. i guess i should be glad i’m not in prison?!?!

thank you for coming to my therapy session 🙂